The irony. After posting this, finally today I see evidence of stealth pollinators. 3 zucchini are getting larger like they must've been pollinated. No more eating 3" long unfertilized zucchini stumps. Thank you whoever sent that bee my way.
I live in a subdivision next to a wooded area with a cleared field in the middle that has a fairly large pond ~ 80 yds away. I haven't spent enough time in other areas outdoors this summer to get a good gauge of the insect population, but sound travels pretty good here and I'd hear them if they...
There's no way the moles ate that many (billions?) crickets. Besides I've dug up and disposed of all but two moles, or only one that's very ambitious. Worms and grubs we still have plenty of when I dig in the garden which is what they're after.
I'm noticing at night, a lack of chirping. Usually by now the drone of crickets is a reminder that summer is here. I don't mind the quiet so much as I do that I have a giant sized zucchini plant that has aborted a dozen or more shoots, and not for lack of male counterparts.
No honey bees...
If their roots stay too wet then most root hairs will rot away and it will stagnate growth for a while. I've had some in the past which just sat there doing almost nothing but looking sickly for a month before the soil had stayed dry long enough then the plants started growing good again.
The...
Peppers like a lot of calcium and if you apply as calcium carbonate (bone meal, egg shells, limestone, chalk, gypsum/plaster/wallboard/etc. and most wood ash too) mixed into the soil, this will bring the soil pH up closer to neutral over time, providing a slow release source over the entire...
Picture taken 4 months after sewing pepper seed indoors so plants about 3.5 mos. old at this point, in roughly ~20 gal. containers. Yield over 1000 pods each by end of season but pods were only (supposed to be, and were) the size of habaneros. I would tell you the type of pepper but I never...
^ I'm sorry if you were offended as it was not my intention, but the type of tomato matters quite a bit when referencing peppers relative to tomatoes.
Realize that everyone has different growing conditions so a pot size that may work for one, may not work for another. As I started to suggest...
Generally speaking indeterminate tomatoes need a larger pot than peppers which need a slightly larger pot than determinate tomatoes IF all else is equal.
However with a good season you might find that 5 gallons stunts peppers, and indeterminate tomatoes even more.
That is the short simple...
Dill, among other things, seems to help repel insects from my other plants nearby, except for some reason monarch butterflies seem to like it. I end up finding one or two monarch caterpillars munching away but nothing else touches it.
I dry it the cheap lazy way, sprawled out on a propped up...
I am a big fan of an early, short dill season. Well I was, now I have a decade worth for my needs.
The first few weeks of a leafy (eaten) plant you get all those tender sprouts and not so much growth wasted on stems, but you still have to let a few bolt to have seed for next time.
Anyway...
I plead ignorance regarding the categories on this forum, but on one hot pepper forum I hang out on, people are giving away seeds all the time, at most asking for postage paid or a trade. There's a separate subforum to do just that.
Does easygarden not have an area where people can offer or...
^ That's an awfully large # of peppers for that amount of soil and space. Then again close planting helps make them more wind resistant. I usually stake mine because it never fails that sometime in July a strong gust of wind comes along and takes something out if I don't.
I think they emailed me that I needed to validate my account there not to lose it or something but for the life of me I couldn't remember my login and lost interest in bothering with it any further... hardly ever went there so no great loss if I have to make a new account.
lol, do not take this seriously! 6 x 20' rows (in the ground, decent growing season) would cause a family of 6 to have okra coming out their ears, a freezer full, and still giving a lot of it away. It also means several hours a week picking it before it gets too large and developing nice...
Oh, you can grow any okra in a container but it will be severely stunted. I do clemson spineless and have had some in a 5 gallon bucket right next to a garden area where they were in the ground. Those in the ground were much larger, produced over 3X as many pods and could go a few days between...
If it's too cold they just won't grow much till it warms up, but once it does they should grow at a normal rate again.
Something that helps is give them a ton of nitrogen early on to get good growth, but then stop when you see the first buds you want to keep (don't let a little 10" plant grow...
I can tell you what I would do. I'd try two wooden popsicle sticks, or pliers, to hold the seed while drilling with a carbide PCB drilling bit in a drill press - but those bits are very brittle, I wouldn't try using that type with a hand drill or dremel tool.
The other option for holding them...
Yeah I wish they had more time. It was first freeze, 29F here last night but the vine started dying over a week ago. Everything outside is dead now except a few traces of spinach that somehow survived freezing, maybe only because it was such little leaves close to the ground that remained.
Turned out to be cantaloupe, though they are not very tasty due to the late start, cold weather ending the season too soon. At least they're edible.
Oddly the 3 that made it to full size didn't have as much netting as normal, while the ones that only made it to the size of a softball had a...